Managhat Market Garden Flourishing
The students at the Managhat Primary school run, under the supervision of teachers, our Community Agricultural Support Officer (CASO) and our Education Officer the most fantastic school income generating, business training demonstration market garden.
The students in Standard 6 not only learn how to grow the different vegetables they also learn the business side of growing different vegetables. This starts with customer consultation to determine the needs in the market place at different times of year, growing the vegetables using organic pest control, drip irrigation and different soil management techniques, they record costs and sales.
In the first year (2016) the garden, bearing in mind a most things sell for £0.10 to £0.15 an item, made £95 profit, in the second year (2017) the garden made a profit of £185.
This was achieved through:-
- Peer learning and sharing at the end of the first year. Students advised the following on cohort what lesson they had learnt and what they would do differently
- introduction of drip irrigation
- More supervision time from both the teachers and the CASO and business training from the Education Officer
- Better customer research and sales and marketing
- Improved soil with the use of the school's slurry, compost and mulching
